University of Michigan

Researchers at the University of Michigan are closely watching President Obama’s call for a big increase in federal funding for brain research. 

President Obama is proposing a 100 million dollar increase in federal funding for brain research.   

U of M has many different researchers studying the human brain.    From Alzheimer’s disease to Depression, neuroscientists on the Ann Arbor campus are approaching the brain from a wide variety of specialties.

The University of Michigan’s allotment of tickets to this weekend’s Final Four basketball games is going quickly.

The last of the more than three thousand tickets might be scooped up by season ticket holders and students by the end of today.

Wolverine fans are not only scrambling for tickets.  They are also looking for places to stay in Atlanta for Saturday’s semi-final game against Syracuse and hopefully Monday’s national championship game.

U.S. media shape many Americans' perceptions of the Middle East.

The general lack of knowledge about the culture, society and economy of a part of the world that is so closely connected to the United States was the impetus for a joint effort between the University of Michigan and Qatar University.

Together, the schools have created the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute, charged with the mission of conducting state of the art social science research in the Arab Gulf.

Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty spoke with Mark Tessler, a University of Michigan Professor of Political Science and a principal researcher at the Institute.

Michiganders evenly divided over right-to-work law

"A Michigan State University poll finds state residents about evenly divided over whether the new right-to-work law will help or hurt the economy. 43 percent of those polled say the law will help Michigan's economy, while 41 percent say it will hurt," the Associated Press reports.

Medical marijuana law changes begin today

More changes to Michigan's medical marijuana law goes into effect today. As the Associated Press reports,

"The measures define the type of doctor-patient relationship that is needed before medical marijuana use can be certified. For example, a doctor must complete a face-to-face evaluation of the patient. . . Among the many other changes is that state-issued cards given to people who have a doctor's endorsement for medical-marijuana use will be good for two years instead of one."

University of Michigan makes Final Four

The University of Michigan will move on to the Final Four in NCAA basketball. Michigan beat the University of Florida 79-59. The U of M will play Syracuse University Saturday in the national semi-final.

There will be one Michigan team playing in the Final Four in next weekend’s NCAA’s men’s basketball tournament. 

The Michigan Wolverines jumped to a double digit lead early in their Elite Eight game against the Florida Gators on Sunday. And they never relinquished their lead. The final score was 79 to 59. 

Michigan is the only Big Ten team to reach the Final Four. Michigan State and Ohio State both lost tournament games over the weekend.

U of M will play the Syracuse Orangemen in one of next Saturday’s national semi-finals in Atlanta.  

Twenty years or so ago, I got up the nerve to ask the late Coleman Young, the controversial and acid-tongued mayor of Detroit, why affirmative action was necessary.

Nobody ever thought of Mayor Young as shy, retiring or diplomatic, and I was fully prepared for a caustic and profane reply. But he instead grew almost philosophical.

He mentioned a case where white students were complaining that affirmative action in college admissions gave an unfair advantage to lesser qualified students of color.

March Madness tips off for Michigan and Michigan State on Thursday at the Palace of Auburn Hills, but for fans of the two schools, the madness has already started online. 

Earlier this week, Facebook unveiled a set of maps showing the most-liked college basketball team in every county across the United States. The map is based on more than 1 million Facebook likes.  

And while U-M and MSU were pretty evenly matched on the court this year — the teams split two meetings during the regular season — Wolverine fans are delivering a butt-kicking on Facebook. 

Only seven counties in the whole state support the Spartans over the Wolverines, according to a map comparing the two schools directly. Nationally, wide swatches of the country are painted maize, showing support for Michigan, with only a few patches of green. 

Yesterday, Republicans on a Michigan House Appropriations subcommittee voted to punish universities they believe are trying to avoid the state's new right-to-work law.

The state's new right-to-work law goes into effect on March 28. It outlaws contract agreements with unions that require dues or fees as a condition of employment.

But some public schools and universities are working out new contracts ahead of the deadline.

Wayne State University and the University of Michigan recently struck contracts with their unions causing some legislators to cry foul.

The subcommittee voted to strip public universities of 15 percent of their funding if recently passed contracts or contract extensions did not achieve at least a 10 percent savings.

At this point, it's just a subcommittee vote. To go into effect, the bill would have to pass both the state House and Senate and then be signed by Governor Rick Snyder.

MLive's Jonathan Oosting wrote about Gov. Snyder's thoughts on the bill:

"It's early in the legislative process," Snyder said Tuesday evening when asked about a proposed higher education budget bill that could cost his alma mater, the University of Michigan, millions in state funding next fiscal year.

"What I would say is, if people are coming in and bargaining in good faith and showing real benefits, I don't believe people should be penalized. Now, the real issue would be if somebody were doing that with no substance to simply extend the date, then I could see legislators having a concern. So it's just something to watch in the legislative process."

If it's passed, the universities stand to lose a lot of money:

The University of Michigan...could reportedly lose up to $41.1 million in state funding... [and Wayne State University] could lose up to $27.5 million of a possible $184 million in state funding next year under the proposed budget bill.

Today I am going to talk about something in which I could be accused of having a conflict of interest. Normally, we try not to do that, and if it were only something affecting me, I wouldn’t. But the people really being threatened here are thousands of young people in Michigan, and the state‘s future.

I am talking about a vote yesterday in a state house of representatives subcommittee designed to punish schools and universities who agree to contracts with their faculty and staff that lawmakers don’t like for ideological reasons. This has to do with the anti-union, right to work legislation that was rammed through a lame-duck session of the legislature last December. This bill doesn’t take effect until eight days from how, so technically Michigan is not a right to work state yet.

On a 4-3 party-line vote, a Michigan House Appropriations subcommittee voted to punish universities the Republicans believe are trying to avoid the state's new right-to-work law.

That law goes into effect on March 28th.

Wayne State University and the University of Michigan have struck contracts with their unions ahead of that deadline.

Public universities that signed new contracts or contract extensions that did not achieve at least a 10 percent savings would face a 15 percent cut in state funding under a budget bill approved this morning.

What would it take to get humans to Mars?

For the last seven months, NASA's rover 'Curiosity' has crawled all over the planet's dusty red Gale Crater.

As it explores, the rover has sent back all sorts of information to Earth for further investigation.

Most recently, a report of a rock sample collected by Curiosity shows that, yes, ancient Mars could have supported living microbes.

But let's go one step further. What would it take for human beings to get to Mars?

Ben Longmier is an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan College of Engineering and researches electric propulsion, spacecraft design and basic plasma physics.

Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty spoke with Longmier about the challenges and possibilities of getting humans on Mars.

Click the link above to hear the full interview.

The University of Michigan's "Understanding Race Project" will examine race through storytelling tomorrow evening at the Michigan Theater.

La'Ron Williams  is a member of the National Storytelling Network, the Detroit Association of Black Storytellers, and the National Association of Black Storytellers.

He is set to perform his work Elm Park, 1955, in which he shares his interaction with race as a kid growing up in Flint, Michigan.

Michigan Radio's Lester Graham spoke with Williams about the power of storytelling, race, and the University's project.

Listen to the full interview above.

Future University of Michigan writers can focus on their work – and not on finding work, thanks to a $50 million gift by The Zell Family Foundation.

The gift is the third-largest to the U of M and the largest ever received by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.  Helen Zell has been supporting the college for several years.

The University of Michigan is undertaking a broad review of the effects of Michigan’s growing natural gas industry.   U of M researchers met with environmentalists and industry officials today in Lansing.

Most natural gas is extracted using a process called hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking. There are concerns that fracking might cause health and environmental problems.   But supporters say fracking is helping boost Michigan’s economy. 

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - A new $7.5 million fund aims to help University of Michigan medical discoveries move from the laboratory to the market.

The Ann Arbor school says Monday the effort will help its Medical School and its Office of Technology Transfer identify and advance medical research projects with a high potential of commercial success.

The fund will be called the U-M MTRAC for Life Sciences. MTRAC stands for Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization.

The effort is funded in part by a $2.4 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation's 21st Century Jobs Fund.

It's one of several research commercialization efforts funded by the MEDC.

The challenge of food insecurity is a fact of life for some 50 million Americans.

Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment are taking part in a major study to probe the causes and solutions to food insecurity in Michigan.

In short, their research will look into how to link up the people who are not getting enough fresh healthy food, to the producers and the sources of that safe healthy food.

University of Michigan Professor Dorceta Taylor is one of the lead investigators. She is a professor of Environmental Justice at the School of Natural Resources and Environment and she was kind enough to tell us about the issue of food security.

To hear the full story click the audio link above.

A study by researchers at the University of Michigan links lead exposure in children to lower achievement on standardized tests.

It's published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health.  Click here to read the study. 

From the study:

Detroit has an extensive lead poisoning problem. Although only 20% of Michigan’s children younger than 5 years lived in Detroit in 2010, childhood lead poisoning in Detroit has consistently accounted for more than 50 percent of the state’s total lead burden.

Detroit Free Press reporter Keith Matheny's article explores the research further and the schools affected.

The greater the lead poisoning in a Detroit Public Schools student's blood, the higher the likelihood he or she will do poorly on achievement tests -- even after accounting for contributing factors such as poverty. That's the finding of a collaborative study that provides one of the most detailed assessments yet of the impact of lead poisoning on students' learning ability.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - A University of Michigan history professor is being honored for his contributions to education research and policy.

Jeffrey Mirel has been elected to the National Academy of Education. As a member of the academy, Mirel will participate in professional development programs and serve on expert panels to discuss education issues.

He's one of 12 members from across the country elected this year.